Calling “Antiques Roadshow.” It was a Paul Bunyan doll that captured her eye, but the Virginia flea market buyer, who paid less than $50 for the box lot that held it, also purchased what could turn out to be a painting by the French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
The Potomack Company, based in Alexandria, Va., is scheduled to auction off the small pastel-colored painting it believes is Renoir’s “Paysage Bords de Seine” on Sept. 29, and has valued it between $75,000 and $100,000. Anne Norton Craner, Potomack’s fine arts specialist and a former research associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, said she researched the 5.5-by-9-inch river scene and is convinced that Renoir painted it.
